Face of the Earth

by Doug Raber

  * * *

  Day 29: Finding Jake

  Sarah joined the two men at the table, where Chee offered some slightly stale fry bread, beans, and coffee. “Raymond says you’re okay, so I’ll take his word for it. We don’t know what’s happening here exactly, but it’s not good. You think you’re going to be able to help us?”

  “I don’t know. I can only say that I’ll try to find out what’s going on and get the story in the Washington Post. I need to get information from for someone I think is here.”

  “Anthony has lived in Farmington most of his life, and people will help him.”

  Sarah had a lot of questions. “Do you have any idea where the medical people are located?”

  “Yeah, they’re over at SJC. That’s San Juan College, a couple of miles east of here. Almost all of the government people have moved in there. They stopped classes, and they took over a lot of the buildings. I used to work there, electrical and plumbing and stuff, so I know a lot of the employees.”

  “Is that the military headquarters, too?”

  “No. Their main operations are down by the airport. That’s where the troops are based. Maybe a thousand.”

  He turned to Raymond. “I just heard that two local men have been detained by the military. One was Jimmy Ayze. He was trying to drive to his mom’s place east of the city, and they stopped him on the main highway. Then they came to his house and took away his brother Jeremiah. The people next door overheard something about Jack Redhouse, like they were accusing Jimmy and Jeremiah of helping Jack get out of town.”

  Raymond interrupted angrily. “They need to let Jack alone. The man has suffered enough. Why would they be after him anyway?”

  “I don’t know, Raymond. Doesn’t make any sense at all to me, but we haven’t been able to find out anything more. The unit commander wouldn’t even let the lawyer from the Tribal Council see them. Wouldn’t even admit that they were in custody.”

  Chee turned to Sarah. “You asked about the college. They’re using classrooms as hospital rooms. They’re also using the science labs, and they’ve brought in a whole lot of equipment.”

  “That’s where we need to look. The friend I’m looking for is a scientist, so he’d need a laboratory. You know that it’s probably smallpox?”

  “Yeah, word got out pretty quick after Dr. Akebe saw Jimmy Shepherd’s kid. That was after Jackson died. I heard that the people in Washington told Akebe he was nuts, but I guess they changed their minds. What are the chances that we’ll all get smallpox if we start nosing around those people at the college?”

  Sarah knew the question was directed to her. “To be completely honest, Anthony, I really don’t know. It depends on whether you were vaccinated when you were a child and how long that vaccination remains effective. I was vaccinated about 15 years ago for a trip to Africa, but most people stopped getting vaccinated a lot earlier.”

  “Raymond and I were both in the first Gulf War and got vaccinated then. Is it still good?”

  “I think we should all be okay, from what I’ve read. No vaccine is 100 percent, but we have to take the risk.”

  Raymond and Anthony both nodded. It meant they would all work together.

  “We need to find Jake Overman, the friend I told you about. Is there somewhere where we could watch the main entrance to the college?”

  Anthony frowned as he considered the question. “I have an idea. Let’s go for a ride.”

  They climbed into Anthony’s pickup truck. To Sarah, it looked even older than Raymond’s, and it drove accordingly. But it wouldn’t attract attention.

  Anthony explained as he drove: “We’re on Pinon Hills Boulevard. You can see the college up ahead on the right. It’s about a hundred acres, maybe two hundred. After we go past, we’ll head down toward Main Street. There’s a little cantina that my cousin runs. We can see if he knows anything.”

  A short distance after they passed the campus, Anthony pulled into a parking area to the side of a small but well-kept storefront with a sign identifying it as “Chiquita’s Cantina.” Five minutes later, Sarah and Raymond were sipping coffee, and Anthony was across the dining room chatting with his cousin.

  Anthony joined them at the table with a mug of coffee. “Most of the government people are staying at the Travelodge a mile down the street. A few of them have come here for a snack, but it’s a little too native for most of them. The typical customers here are local working folks, so maybe the Easterners don’t think they fit in. They’re mostly eating their meals at Chili’s or one of the fast-food places. But my cousin says that a lot of them have been shopping right across the street at San Juan Plaza.”

  Sarah’s frustration was growing. “How are we going to find out if Jake is really here? There have got to be a lot of security people here, and they’ll notice if we ask too many questions.”

  “We just have to ask the right people. Nobody would think twice about me talking to my friends here. You and Raymond have to be a little more careful, though, because there’s definitely a lot of security. They walk like military, but they’re wearing civvies.”

  “Can we hang out here without raising any suspicion?”

  “Sure. My cousin knows to keep this quiet. The folks working in stores and restaurants are on our side, and they’re unhappy because closing off the roads has killed the tourist business. They can’t even call their friends and relatives, now that the phones and Internet are down.”

  “If we do find Jake, I’ll need someplace to talk to him.” Sarah looked around the room, which had a few small tables and a couple of booths. “Could we talk here?”

  “I think it would work real good, don’t you Raymond? Let me go talk with my cousin. His name is Joseph, by the way, Joseph Begay.” Anthony got up and crossed the room to the counter where Joseph was standing by the cash register. After several minutes the two of them came over to the table.

  Anthony made formal introductions, and Joseph spoke directly to Sarah. “Thank you for helping us.”

  “I think we’re all trying to help each other, Joseph. Thanks for letting us use the cantina.”

  “No problem. If you need to talk with someone, I’ll make sure you get that quiet booth over there in the corner.”

  “That would work fine. And one other thing—do you have something with the name and address of the cantina?”

  “That’s easy.” Joseph reached into a pocket and handed her a business card. “We just had these printed.”

  “Perfect.” Sarah copied the information into her notebook and put the card in a pocket. She had been watching the cars driving down Main Street, and something caught her eye. “Those men getting out of the green car over there in the shopping center? One of them is Jake. I’m sure of it! At least, I think I am.”

  “We can walk toward the stores and nobody will think twice,” Anthony said as they headed for the door. “There’s a blue Chevy over there, just this side of the green car that Sarah pointed out. The Chevy belongs to a guy I know who manages one of the stores, so even if he comes out to his car, we could stand next to it and keep talking. For those men to get back to their car, they would have to walk toward us. They wouldn’t get too close, but we could get a clear look at them.”

  As they waited in the parking lot, Sarah took a pen from her pocket and wrote on the back of the business card. Then she focused her attention on the doorway to the pharmacy through which Jake, or at least the person she thought was Jake, had entered. Raymond said he was going in the store to look around. Anthony and Sarah waited by the Chevy trying hard not to look nervous.

  Several minutes later, Raymond emerged and strode over to Sarah and Anthony. “They bought some shampoo and stuff, and they’re just paying for it now. They should be coming out in just a minute.”

  The two men emerged from the pharmacy and began walking in their direction. There was no question about it. The man on the left was Jake. “Wait here for me.” Sarah walked toward the men, keeping her head down. As she approache
d them, she kept her gaze directed toward the ground, but she headed almost directly into Jake’s path.

  He looked up, initially surprised that the person walking toward him wasn’t moving out of the way, and then he stopped dead in his tracks as he recognized Sarah. At first it didn’t compute, and he didn’t say anything. It was exactly what Sarah had hoped for. At the last moment, she turned slightly to the side and walked past Jake, brushing his arm as she did so.

  Then she stopped and reached down, as if to pick up something from the ground. Standing up, she turned back toward the man she had bumped against. “Excuse me, but you dropped this.”

  Still dumbfounded, Jake took the business card. “Uh, thanks,” he responded as Sarah began to walk into the store. He turned the card over, saw the simple notation, “6:00 p.m.” He put the card in his pocket.

  “She sure was clumsy. Maybe drunk,” his companion said.

  “Yeah, I guess so. Whatever. Let’s get back to the lab and finish up for the day. I’m tired.” The two men got into the green Toyota and drove out of the parking lot.

  Sarah, meanwhile, had continued into the store. After the Toyota pulled away, she rejoined Raymond and Anthony. As they walked back toward Chiquita’s, she offered them the package of mints that she had bought in the drugstore. They declined.

  “That was really smooth. Who taught you that?”

  “I’m not sure, Raymond. Maybe I saw it in a movie. I really don’t know.” She was shaking.

  “He recognized me, Raymond.”

  “Yeah, I could see.

  “It worked, Sarah. You did well.”

  “Thanks. I was really lucky.”

  “How well do you know this man? Can you be sure that he won’t just go back and tell the security people?”

  “I trust him, Anthony. He wouldn’t do that. Anyway, I wrote on the card that he should meet us at the cantina at 6:00. I saw him read it.”

  “I’ll ask Joseph if he can use some extra help in the cantina this evening, so if anything goes wrong I’ll be close by. You say this Jake is your friend, but he’s also working for the government. They haven’t been too friendly the last few days. Raymond, maybe you can take point. Stay outside, maybe act like you’re taking a nap in the truck until it looks safe. When you come in, I’ll put you at the next table. Even if this man Jake is as standup as you think he is, Sarah, he won’t notice an Indian at the next table. We tend to be pretty much invisible to most white people.”

  Raymond shrugged. “I guess I could do that. Okay with you, Sarah?”

  “Yeah. We just have to hope that Jake will help us.”

  * * *

  Chapter 18

  Sarah and Jake

  We conclude that the President has both constitutional and statutory authority to use the armed forces in military operations, against terrorists, within the United States. We believe that these operations generally would not be subject to the constraints of the Fourth Amendment, so long as the armed forces are undertaking a military function. Even if the Fourth Amendment were to apply, however, we believe that most military operations would satisfy the Constitution’s reasonableness requirement and continue to be lawful.

  —Justice Department memo, October 2001, on the legality of using military force inside the United States‡

  Day 29: Chiquita’s

  By 5:45 Sarah was sitting in a booth at Chiquita’s, pretending to read a brochure on local attractions. Raymond was outside in the truck, and Anthony was helping Joseph. At 6:00 the door to the cantina opened, and Jake stepped tentatively into the dining area. Sarah caught his eye and motioned to him to join her.

  “Can I get you two anything?” Anthony asked.

  “A couple of Diet Cokes,” Sarah answered.

  “I’d like a beer, please.”

  “Not beer, Jake. We have too many important things to talk about.”

  Jake turned his head toward Anthony. “A beer.” Then he looked hard at Sarah. They were silent.

  “I’ll have your drinks in a minute.”

  Jake waited until Anthony was out of earshot. “Jesus, Sarah! What on Earth are you doing here? I mean, it shouldn’t even have been possible for you to get here. And why? Why are you out here? You’re supposed to be back in D.C.”

  “Wait a minute, until after he brings our drinks. How are you, Jake? I’ve missed you.”

  “Goddamn it! I’m not okay, Sarah. And I’m sure as hell not glad to see you. You shouldn’t be here. It’s too dangerous.”

  Anthony brought Sarah her Coke and set a cold mug of beer in front of Jake. Then he returned to the front of the Cantina.

  Looking over the edge of her glass, Sarah spoke quietly. “Jake, I know about the smallpox.”

  His initial response was one of confusion. “Why shouldn’t you? That’s what I mean about it being too dangerous.”

  “I should be safe, Jake. I was vaccinated 15 years ago, before I went to Africa with my dad.”

  “Maybe you’re okay. Why did you come here, Sarah? Why didn’t you just ask CDC for information? They’re not letting reporters in here for a reason. You should know that.”

  “I’m the only reporter who knows about it, Jake. There’s no information available anywhere. The government is hiding the fact that it’s smallpox. This place is under quarantine, and there’s a complete news blackout.”

  “Of course there’s a quarantine.* That’s the first step in any smallpox response plan. It’s CDC policy. I told you about it when I helped draft the policy.”

  “That’s right, Jake, but the response plan only mandates isolation of people who are infected. Not an entire geographic region.”

  “Normally, sure. But the military advisors argued that a complete quarantine would be more effective. Because this area is remote, we thought we could stop any further spread of the disease. Previous scenarios were designed for heavily populated areas.”

  “You just aren’t getting it, Jake. It goes directly against your own damn policy. And it sure as hell doesn’t explain cutting all communications.”

  “But there’s no news blackout. That doesn’t even make sense. We lost our telephone service this weekend when a rock slide west of here that damaged the main trunk lines. It also took out fiber-optic lines that carry signals from cell-phone towers, but it was supposed to be all fixed by today.”

  “That’s bullshit! I was told last Friday that the phone lines were about to be shut down. Before it happened! It was done intentionally.”

  “My e-mail is working fine.”

  “If your e-mail is working, why didn’t you answer my messages?”

  “What messages? I haven’t seen anything from you in the last two weeks, Sarah.”

  “That’s the point Jake. You haven’t seen them. But I sent them, goddamn it! And what the hell is the military doing out here? National Guard, okay. But regular military units are prohibited from active deployment on U.S. soil unless martial law has been declared. And that certainly hasn’t happened.”

  “It’s some kind of new response force. There was an Army unit trained in bioterrorism response that could deploy rapidly.”

  “But that’s not how it’s supposed to be, Jake! And I don’t know why you’re trying to cover it up, either. We both know that the official response plan for a smallpox outbreak is to provide open and accurate communication to the public. That’s official CDC policy, and you told me about it yourself last year.”

  “It’s not a cover-up, Sarah. CDC headquarters must have just delayed the announcement until we could get things under control here. To avoid a panic. The announcements were supposed to be made over the weekend. I helped draft them, and I signed off on them as head of the medical team from CDC. The entire country should be well aware of this by now.”

  “Have you seen coverage on TV? Have you seen any news reports on the outbreak?”

  “I’ve been too busy to watch television. In addition to treating patients, we’re trying to pin down the origins of the outbreak. But I’ve
walked past the TV in the motel lobby, and they were discussing the outbreak on the local newscast.”

  “That’s bullshit, Jake. They weren’t even admitting to the locals that it was smallpox.”

  “That was before. At first, we thought it would prevent panic if we told the local population it was chickenpox. But it didn’t help, so we started providing accurate information. That was two days ago.”

  “Well let me tell you, there’s no news about this anywhere else in the country. Not a damn thing! They’ve shut it down Jake, and they did it without you even knowing. If there’s news coverage, it’s strictly local. There’s a fucking cover-up going on. It’s time to wake up!”

  Sarah told Jake about the initial reports of chickenpox she had found on HealthMap and how the results suddenly disappeared from the website. “I’m not making this up, Jake. It’s real.”

  Jake started to argue but then just lowered his head and stared at the table. “I don’t understand what’s going on. And you’re right about the military involvement. Christ, I’ve been a fucking idiot. The orders came from Washington, and somebody said it was the White House. We just went along with it.”

  “What’s really going on, Jake? How did this all start?”

  “We don’t know how it started. We’re hoping it’s under control, but we really can’t be certain. There have only been a few cases so far. There could be another wave, people infected by contact with the first victims. Actually, it would be a third wave. We think that it started with a single case—a child—as the primary and that he infected several other kids and adults. Those are the secondary cases. Tertiary cases could involve many more people, hundreds even.”

  “But you think it’s under control?”

  “I didn’t say that, Sarah. I said we’re hoping—that we got here in time and we isolated the secondary victims before they infected others. We are damned lucky that this area is so isolated. We believe everyone who was in contact with the primary victim is still here. But the truth is, we don’t know for an absolute certainty. The outbreak could still get much, much worse. We just got a shipment of vaccine, and we’ve started vaccinating the local population, but we don’t really know how well it’s going to work. We’re also testing a new antiviral agent for those who are infected, but it’s never been used before. We don’t even know about the side effects.”